Semiconductor fins are widely used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology because of the increased integration levels they provide. For example, when transistor devices such as FinFET, fin field effect transistor, devices are formed they provide a gate width that may be larger, by an order of magnitude, than the gate width of a transistor formed on the same substrate section in which the semiconductor fin is formed. Semiconductor fins have a high aspect ratio, i.e. they generally include a height that exceeds their width. When semiconductor fin devices are formed using patterning processes such as photolithography and etching, they are subject to the same limitations and shortcomings that are essentially inherent in such patterning processes such as the difference in size and profile between nested fins and isolated fins. When isolated fins and groups of nested fins are formed simultaneously using the same patterning process, it is difficult to control the profiles of both types of fins and to produce the fins to have the same critical dimensions and profiles. Isolated fins tend to have degraded profiles and reduced critical dimensions.
Another shortcoming associated with fins that are comparatively isolated, i.e. fins that are not in a densely packed feature environment, is the peeling phenomenon. Semiconductor fins that are comparatively isolated tend to peel and detach from the substrate upon which they are formed thereby destroying device functionality and contaminating the processing chamber in which the peeling occurs.
It would therefore be desirable to produce fin devices that are not subject to the above-described shortcomings. It would be desirable to simultaneously produce isolated semiconductor fin devices along with tightly packed semiconductor fins such that the isolated fins are not prone to peeling and further that both the isolated fins and the nested or tightly packed fins are formed to include substantially similar profiles and critical dimensions.
The present invention addresses these needs.